UMC bishops ponder full communion with Episcopal Church

[caption id="attachment_9379" align="aligncenter" width="582"] Bishop Gregory V. Palmer presents "A Gift to the World," a draft proposal to establish full Communion relationship with The Episcopal Church, to the Council of Bishops during their spring 2017 meeting in Dallas, Texas.[/caption] WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United Methodist Church is studying a draft proposal to establish full Communion relationship with The Episcopal Church, a significant step toward bringing the two churches into a closer, visible unity. Bishop Gregory V. Palmer of the Ohio West Episcopal Area and Bishop B. Michael Watson, the Council of Bishops Ecumenical Officer, presented the proposal during the ecumenical report at the Council of Bishops spring meeting in Dallas, Texas. “Over the coming months the dialogue team, co-chairs, and ecumenical staff will solicit input from our bishops, ecumenical networks, and other bodies before developing this draft into an official resolution to be acted upon by our respective legislative bodies,” Bishop Palmer, who is co-chair of The Episcopal-United Methodist Dialogue Committee, told his fellow bishops. Bishop Palmer and his Episcopal Church counterpart, Bishop C. Franklin Brookhart, today (May 17, 2017) issued a letter to accompany the draft proposal entitled A Gift to the World, to share the progress about the relationships formed over these years of dialogue. “We hope you will join us in seeing this proposal as cause for celebration, giving us great hope that our churches might soon live into Jesus’ command that all his followers may be one,” the letter said. Read the full letter from Bishop Palmer and Bishop Brookhart. Read the full document A Gift to the World.